It’s the 30th birthday of the world’s first PC computer virus (and you’re technically still at risk today)

In those dark days before the web existed, computer viruses were (almost literally) transmitted by hand. Business people would travel the world with floppy disks in their briefcases and would infect the computers on which they used the disks.

And there is still a ‘risk’.

But don’t stress, the virus is so old it only affects computers with a floppy disk drive – so it’s probably only your nan who needs to worry.

Thankfully buried in the code, the writers of the virus had kindly added their names and address to get in contact. And their telephone number.

Their phone lines were overloaded with complaints, they later admitted.

Today those same contact details lead you to Brain Telecommunications Ltd, one of the oldest and largest internet companies in Pakistan, and where the creators of the virus – brothers Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi – still work. It’s the company they created.

What the BRAIN virus did

It did very little. It changed the name of the disk and installed this message (or variants of):

Welcome to the Dungeon (c) 1986 Basie & Amends (pvt) Ltd VIRUS_SHOE RECORD V9.0 Dedicated to the dynamic memories of millions of viruses who are no longer with us today – Thanks GOODNESS!! BEWARE OF THE er..VIRUS : this program is catching program follows after these messages….$#@%$@!!

In an interview in 2011, Amjad said BRAIN was an experiment to see how far testing the flaws in the security of the system could travel. They had no regrets as the software didn’t destroy any data or break any systems: ‘we had no intention to have any destruction, or anything.’

In fact, it was that kind of test which made companies started taking security more seriously and created the boom in anti-virus software we have now.